Tuesday, November 24, 2020

Ex-Defense Secretary Mattis Urges Joe Biden To End President Trump’s ‘America First’ Policy

Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis helped pen an article arguing that 'America First' is 'America Alone' 


Former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has broken his silence on the election with a public call to President-elect Joe Biden to alter the course of current defense policy. 

Alongside three co-authors, Mattis published a piece in Foreign Affairs on Monday warning against abrupt departure from Afghanistan and calling for the elimination of "America First" as a tenet of defense strategy. 

"To dismiss U.S. involvement today in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere as 'endless' or 'forever' wars -- as both President Donald Trump and President-elect Joe Biden do -- rather than as support to friendly governments struggling to exert control over their own territory misses the point," Mattis and his co-authors wrote. 

"It is in the United States' interests to build the capacity of such governments to deal with the threats that concern Americans."




Update #3: Jim Mattis' Foreign Affairs post is here .... Defense In Depth: Why U.S. Security Depends on Alliances—Now More Than Ever (Kori Schake, Jim Mattis, Jim Ellis, and Joe Felter, Foregn Affairs).

2 comments:

David Winter said...

I don't think you can be a Patriot and also a Transnationalist. It seems that Mattis has chosen his path. He went back to working for General Dynamics, a major defense contractor, after leaving as SecDef, so like they say, follow the money.

Anonymous said...

Mattis is a very smart man.

Theranos collapses in September of 2018 and two months later he announced his resignation. I don't think it is a coincidence. James Mattis should remember his own bad judgment when he calls out others bad judgment or says the President is a threat to the Constitution.

There was no lieutenant, captain, major or colonel to pour over the schematics of the Theranos wonder tester or review the reports.

Mattis was to Theranos what Mueller was to the Mueller investigation.

Some guy picked to look old and give the proceedings gravitas and collect a paycheck on the way out the door.

I do not think much of Mattis's recent history.